Black-Eyed Susan

by Ethel Calvert Phillips

For Phil had been ill in bed, and this was his first taste of fun in two whole weeks. He had looked forward mightily to this very moment, and his mother’s promise that he should have a party as soon as he was well had helped, more than anything else, to make the big spoonfuls of black medicine go down without a struggle.

Phil’s cheeks were white and his face was thin, and he wore for warmth his manly little blue-and-white checked bathrobe, since only last night his cough had been croupy again. Not that Phil called it his bathrobe. In admiring imitation of his father’s lounging costume he called it his “smoking-jacket,” and he had even had the daring to slip a match or two into the deep side pocket, in which he fervently hoped no one might pry. If Phil’s mother had even suspected such a thing, he and the matches would have parted company speedily, he well knew. He meant to slip them safely back as soon as the party was over, and no one would be the wiser or harmed in the least by what he had done, he thought. He smiled to himself as he fingered the forbidden objects that nestled so innocently in his pocket and gave him such a jaunty grown-up feeling.

And, in Phil’s secret heart, there was another reason why he was happy this afternoon. Gentilla had gone away.

It was not that Phil didn’t like Gentilla, for he did. He had played happily with her and Susan through the long summer days that the little girl had spent in Featherbed Lane. He had enjoyed, he thought, the long stay Gentilla had made with the Whitings when her gypsy relatives had disappeared in the night and had never been heard of from that time to this.

But at last Gentilla’s visit had come to an end. Mr. Drew knew of a Home for little children who needed some one to love and care for them. And so, one bright October day, the good minister took the little gypsy girl to her new home where she would lead an ordered, comfortable life quite different from the rough-and-tumble days she had known in gypsy van or camp.

At parting, Phil had presented Gentilla with his treasured Noah’s ark because she loved it so. He would willingly have given her his express wagon, in which he had treated her to many a ride, if his mother hadn’t explained that it would not go into Gentilla’s tiny trunk which her kind friends were filling for her with a neat little outfit. He stood upon the station platform, loyally waving his hat until the train was quite out of sight.

And it was not until then that he learned how pleasant it was to have an undivided Susan for a playmate once again, a Susan who was always glad to see him, who never whispered secrets and wouldn’t tell, who never ran away from him, and who, in short, was to be the chosen guest of honor that very afternoon.

“It must be most supper-time,” grumbled Phil. “I wish the clock would strike, or Susan would come, or something would happen.”

The clock on the mantel began a whirring and creaking that caused Phil to spring to his feet and fasten his eyes upon the little Roman soldier in helmet and shield, who stood alert, both day and night, atop the clock, ready to strike the hours as they came. The whirring grew louder. Slowly the little Roman soldier raised his arm and loudly struck his shield once, twice. Two o’clock!

“Time for Susan,” said Phil joyfully.